I agree with @Wolverine86 as I have spoken with our local high school head counselor. He told me that those who did not advance will get notified first in January. The rest would just have to wait for the snail mail to arrive.
Just out of curiosity, for those that have not received your letter yet, which end of the alphabet is your last name? Clearly distance will play a role, but they had to have some order of processing congratulation letters…
No letter yet, and we are fairly high up in the alphabet.
Despite all of our efforts, I have determined that we will be of absolutely zero help to the NMSF class of 2016. I hope that they are at least entertained and supported by @albert69’s thread.
Live in Nebraska and still anxiously awaiting to hear about my son for NMF status. Could snail mail be delayed or would we have heard by now?
Admit I am relieved to read others are also still waiting word. I thought the schools were to be notified by Feb 3. Our principal has not heard anything yet…Lord grant me patience…
@eaglemomNE - could you get your principal to call? It might be that they would tell you. Not sure about that. They are open today.
@EaglemomNE, my son is a finalist, as notified by the school. However, the school only knew last Thursday (for a letter that presumably arrived Wednesday). I have not yet gotten the home letter. My point is that even school letters have only recently arrived (and/or are arriving), and not all home letters have reached their destinations.
Some home letters are definitely still en-route. My D heard from the school more than a week ago and we still haven’t received anything in our mailbox. (CA)
We’re still waiting here in MN. Zip code in the 50000s, last name in the middle of the alphabet (O). No news from the school, no snail mail at home (obviously not today, fingers crossed for tomorrow)
A few posts back there was mention of stackable scholarships at OU. In general, they do not offer any additional scholarships on top of the NM package. But there are a few that can be stacked. My S1, about 5 years ago, was offered a separate engineering scholarship from OU that he could stack on top of the NM package. Any outside scholarships (not from OU) can be stacked as well. Plenty of other universities stack scholarships on top of their NM package. TAMU certainly does. The TAMU NM package only pays for a little over half of a 4 year degree, but as far as I can tell, most of the NMFs end up with a full ride eventually.
No letter of any sort yet, so I assume I made it…live in TX, middle of the alphabet. School will never let me know, they probably lost the notification if they even got it in the first place, lol.
Still waiting in Georgia, but the mail has not come today. School has been cancelled in most of the metro Atlanta area for the last two days, so it’s like the perfect storm to keep us from being notified! How easy would it be for us to be notified through an email or on the NMSC site?
We have not been notified by the school but thankfully received the letter at home on Thursday. We are in Illinois about 30 minutes away from NMSC so anyone further away that hasn’t received anything keep in mind it took 4 days to get to us!
Re: NMF letter to the home - still haven’t seen it in Kansas City, KS, though our mail isn’t delivered until @ 5PM. Planning to give our Mail Dude the All-Clear to resume normal, haphazard delivery after the letter arrives. It may wind up at a neighbor’s house anyway, but I must say that our mailman has tried hard over the past couple of weeks. I don’t think we’ve gotten any incorrect mail since he & I had a little chat in mid-Jan! Bless his heart, I will let him off the hook soon.
Re: The University of Oklahoma: DS & I visited this past weekend. Drive was long (almost 6 hours), though actually quite scenic. For anyone who has not driven through the Flint Hills of KS (probably most of you…) it is absolutely worth a trip (and yes, I understand that most of you would not drive through the Flint Hills en route to OU…just thought I’d give a Flint-Hills Shout-Out while I’m at it). So DS would have a long, but fairly smooth commute to OU. Weather there was not great (ice storm) but they can’t really control the weather, can they?
I must say: If your DC has not checked out OU & you’re looking for NMS options, it is absolutely worth a look. We were extremely impressed. All the usual campus/program stuff was great, National Scholars office folks were wonderful, generous scholarship, preferential treatment for NMS during college years. etc. But much to my DS’s annoyance, I spent time stopping Random Students on campus to ask questions - and I ran into several National Merit and/or Honors College students among them. What the random students had to say about OU was compelling - didn’t meet a young person who doesn’t love it there. Also, the National Merit Scholars they bring in to meet with prospective students & parents were all fantastic. Current OU NM Scholars from all over the US - all said they came to OU for the scholarship but went on to appreciate the university for what it had to offer, numerous research/internship opportunities, all the friendships made, wonderful faculty & programs, etc. I’m still car-lagged from our in/out trip, so I’m not coherent yet - but this school is really worth a look if your DC is still seeking options. I have a feeling that UA would give us the same impression, but the OU trip made DS realize that it’s absolutely as far way from home as he’d want to go. Right now, OU is among his very top picks. If it was just a smidge closer to home, he would sign on the dotted line. For us, cost is a huge consideration, so OU makes it very hard to walk away from the table. We will definitely visit over Spring Break as a family.
@PAMom21, re: your comment upthread: What’s going on w/the 2016 PSAT thread and why won’t this thread prove helpful to them? Sheesh, we’ve busted our bacon over here to be both informative AND entertaining. Do we need to go over to that thread to perform an intervention? I’m not sure I can save anybody else but myself at this point. Let us know the issues and maybe we can help them.
@albert69, I thought of you as we drove past Wichita. I’ve only been there a couple of times in my life, but it screams aeronautics from the highway at least. I believe the WSU scholarship is more generous than the OU scholarship, and WSU offers exactly what you want in your field of study, OU is not actually that far away from WSU, so you may want to consider visiting if you’re making a drive in that general direction. Not an effort to sway you in any way, because WSU is well-known for certain programs and for the opportunities to get a lot of hands-on, real-life experiences very quickly in the college years. Just thought of you when we toured OU because it might be worth a look if you have an extra 2 days. They will treat you like royalty when you visit. We could not get over the fuss they made over us. And they pay for your hotel for one night if you call the National Scholars office.
Best of luck to those still waiting for letters. The winter weather has probably slowed the routes of NMSC’s remaining carrier pigeons.
Wasn’t my comment! But I’m guessing @cshecmia just meant that there is still no rhyme or reason to summarize and report, to give the next classes any hope whatsoever in regard to the mailing habits of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. But surely there is much entertainment to be had by all who visit this thread in the future to at least pass the time.
Still no letter here, but our mail is uncharacteristically late today, probably due to snow. I made a point of shoveling our our box though, so no excuses.
@GoAskDad Thanks for the thought, but I’m really not interested in OU. Besides, going to WSU is going to be enough of a time sink for me because my community college has no spring break. (I’m taking 3 classes there.) We won’t have any extra time except to visit WSU. OU and WSU are both generous to NMF, just in different ways. You get more time paid for at OU (5 years), but the housing price tab is not paid at all after the 1st year. And housing at OU costs more than the in-state tution at WSU! WSU only gives 4 years, but housing is paid the whole time (though I will probably upgrade to a better housing option than their base offer.) The WSU requirements to keep the scholarship are a stricter too (15 units per semester and 3.5 GPA), but I am willing to take that chance. OU just sounds too big for me. Over 30,000 undergrads vs about 8,000-10,000.
@PAMom21, Oh, shoot! You’re right. Sorry. I got my posters confused! See, I am car-lagged.
@albert69, sounds good & you obviously have a plan in place. It will be great when you can visit WSU and I’m sure they will also do a good job of making you feel at home. And if anybody can make that GPA requirement work, it will be YOU!
@GoAskDad Thanks! Have you transferred to the parents thread yet or are you waiting for your personal NMSC letter to arrive?
FINALLY! Wow, that’s some slooooow moving first class.